Julie: There’s an interesting snippet regarding the RSPCA being somewhat stupid (in a spamming sense) in last week’s Need To Know, (which I’ve only just got round to reading, so busy am I) – about the third item down, look out for FAXYOURMP.COM and you’re in the right place.

Gimboland’s been verging on the silent lately, hasn’t it? Don’t worry, I still love you, I’ve just been busier and more focused on my work than ever before. I’m getting the impression that this job is going to be frantically busy in term-time, and somewhat gentler the rest of the time – which would be a good thing ‘cos then I might get some research done (zip so far). Anyway, this is just a brief burst of telemetry data so you know I’m still transmitting, I guess.

If you ignore the first paragraph, here’s a pretty good article on why the Space Shuttle was still in use despite being old, overexpensive, and unsafe [diepunyhumans]. Unsurprisingly, it’s all to do with politics, money, and entrenched interests – and ooh look, there’s Boeing’s name.

I’m in disagreement with Jim on this one… I agree that we need to get into space (after all, the fundamental reason the dinosaurs died out is that they didn’t have a space programme), but does it have to involve flag-planting? Does it have to involve flags at all?